Still Birth and Siblings -Conversations with a 5 year old

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Yesterday we had to pass time while my eldest was at Scouts, so I took 5-year-old (Leah) to the local shops. I had to order some photographic prints from the kiosk so Leah was keeping herself busy in the way only a five-year old can., keeping herself in the immediate vicinity around me.

She looks at all the picture frames, she comments on all the books she can see. She begins telling me which ones she would like (animals, no surprise there) and which ones she would not like (trucks, equally unsurprising). She comments when she sees other customers walking around and she comments when a mother with a fidgety newborn in the trolley comes past as well. As she talks away I hear what she is saying is actually, “How do we get Claudia not to die. We could go back in time and get Claudia to not die?” Then to me, “Mum, hey Mum, would it be good to go back in time to get Claudia to not die?”

My answer, while I’m sitting at the kiosk loading up pretty pictures of my two children’s smiling faces onto the machine is “Yes my sweet, but we can’t go back in time. Can we?”
“Nope. But I would” She asserts while dancing around in a jiggidy bug circle type dance. Her little brain had worked out the situation and the solution. She’s happy and cheerful as she talks about Claudia’s death for a bit. My responses to her would sound like we were talking about what to have for dinner to anyone listening, But what I’m trying to do is actually mirror the emotion of the child and the context of their questions. Leah was happily asking away so I just answered in the same tone. I think we end up talking about going back in time and seeing dinosaurs. She’s having a dinosaur moment as the Kindy kids are learning about them at school. She roars away, I laugh and we finish picking photos.

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Published by Till Heike-Woods

Till is a Beach Lover, Mother, Writer, Artist, Optimist, Stillbirth Advocate, Seamstress and Notoriously Bad Speller.
She is the mother of four and is currently very tired.
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